Thevenin Equivalent & Maximum Power Transfer
Summary
In this activity, students will explore two important principles in electrical engineering: Thevenin's Theorem and the Maximum Power Transfer Theorem. Students will use MATLAB to model and analyze how a circuit behaves when connected to different load resistances.
CollapseLearning Goals
- Students should learn how to translate real-world problems into MATLAB code, perform mathematical analysis and produce accurate results.
- Students use vectorized computation, plotting, indexing, and fprintf to calculate parameters and visualize results, which accelerates feedback and deepens conceptual understanding.
-The activity involves critical validation of theory vs computation, data analysis of curves and optima, synthesis of real scenarios into models, and design judgment under constraints.
- Students practice professional technical communication, clean and commented code, and disciplined quantitative reasoning.
Context for Use
This activity is suited for 1st year electrical engineering students. It requires an introductory knowledge of circuit analysis, specifically Thevenin's Theorem and Ohm's Law. In order to complete this activity using MATLAB, an introduction to MATLAB syntax and general interface is sufficient. It would be advantageous for students to complete the MATLAB Onramp course. This activity is meant for a lab setting, spanning up to three hours. The recommended class size is a maximum of 16 students in order for the instructor to provide efficient support.
The activity is simple enough that it can be adapted to any environment where the learners have the requisite introductory knowledge.
Description and Teaching Materials
The activity is fully explained in the supporting documentation. Students are required to read through the explanations and work through each section using only MATLAB. The activity can be done using other software. The main reason for selecting MATLAB is to familiarize students with the environment so that they can comfortably utilize MATLAB in succeeding levels of their undergraduate tenure to solve more complex engineering problems.
Student Activity - Thevenin Equivalent & Maximum Power Transfer (Acrobat (PDF) 175kB Sep28 25)
Teaching Notes and Tips
Some students might have problems interpreting results obtained when using the "max" function. It would be advantageous to prepare a short tutorial covering indexing.
Assessment
Students have met the goals of this assignment when they have produced the correct mathematical solutions, plotted the correct graphs and written appropriate comments.